FREE.CHURCH - FREE CHURCH OAK PARK
FREE.CHURCH - FREE CHURCH OAK PARK
A Season for Giving // Pastor Ben Gomez // November 17th, 2024
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Hey, what's up? Free Church, how we doing today. Good to see you all. Happy Sunday, happy Baptism Sunday. You guys picked a good service to come to and we want to congratulate all of our church family that decided to get baptized today. Amen, give them a round of applause. I don't know if they're all in here Some of them might still be changing, but it's always a fun day whenever we have Baptism Sunday and this was, I believe, in our 12 years of church life. This was our biggest Baptism Sunday ever, so it was awesome.
Speaker 1:We had a conversation a couple weeks ago, just as a team and as a staff, and we were just kind of discussing what makes a successful Sunday. Like, what are we if we walk away from Sunday and X happens, and the X is what makes us feel like we did our job. Bless you. What needs to happen, and one of the things that we talked about as a priority as a team and as a staff, is people taking the next step, people actually getting into a small group, getting into Freeway, making a decision to get baptized, and so, just as a church, this is probably one of our biggest wins of the year that we were able to baptize 19 people 18 registered. Every Baptism Sunday Pastor Chuck will say, almost tongue-in-cheek anybody else and nine times out of ten there is no anybody else. But this week we actually had a spontaneous baptism. We had 18 register, 19 get baptized and I think that's an amazing way to really kick off this last stretch of the year. As a church family, we have a lot of momentum, we have a lot of strength in the church. We feel like we're really going somewhere quickly. It feels like we're stepping into a season of unity and a season of, like I said, momentum. So it's an exciting time to be at Free Church.
Speaker 1:I'm going to jump right into it for the sake of time. We had no idea how long baptisms were going to take. So I have a 30-minute message prepared. I have a six-minute message prepared. I was doing okay, if I have 20 minutes, where do I stop? Like what's the cutoff? What point do I leave out? So I'm going to jump into it and we're just going to kind of see what happens. I'm not going to take too long. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:If you have your Bible, you can go to Acts, chapter 2. We've been talking about it all day. Acts, chapter 2, verses 41 through 47. When you're there say I'm there, who has their real Bible? Nice, nice, I love my Bible. You can jump to Acts, chapter 2, verse 41, and I'm going to read it. It'll also be on the screen.
Speaker 1:Acts 2, 41 in the ESV says this. So those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3,000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all that had any need and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. So that is that's church life pretty much in a nutshell the breaking of bread, the teaching of the apostles and the prayers. That's what it says in 242. That is all of church life pretty much summed up.
Speaker 1:And what's important to note, or interesting to note on a day like today is that, as we know and I'm sure you know we've heard a million times repentance and baptism precedes the early church. So what happens in order is that in Acts, chapter 2, it's the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit pours himself out on the apostles, then Peter preaches a fire message and then 3,000 people get baptized and then the church starts. So if we see that in the story of the church, we also have seen that time and time again for thousands of years in the life of the believer, that what precedes devotion to church life, a deep prayer life, a connection to the community of faith, what precedes that, is repentance and baptism. And so for everyone who got baptized today we are seeing a real life, almost object lesson of what happens at the beginning of the Christian life for people. Now, some people who got baptized have been in church for a long time. Some people who got baptized just made a decision to follow Jesus recently.
Speaker 1:But what we see in the pattern of Scripture is that baptism and repentance and the infilling of the Holy Spirit is the kickstarter to what empowers Jesus' people to live the Christian life. So I would just say, if you are feeling like you have a struggle to live the Christian life. If you feel like there's a block or a hindrance or an obstacle in the way of your discipleship, I would ask you have you been baptized, or were you baptized as a kid, or has it just been a long time and after you got baptized you spent a season away from the Lord and you're coming back? I would encourage you to get baptized again If you're needing that spark, if you're needing that, if you feel like your walk with the Lord is missing the grace to actually pursue it. The church has described baptism for years as a means of grace. What that means is that when you get baptized, that is when the grace of the Holy Spirit then falls on you to follow Jesus's steps and to become like him.
Speaker 1:So the church as we see, the church that you and I are in today, the church with a capital C started with a baptism service, and so I want to kind of look at Acts. Just I wanna focus in on a verse today. You can look at Acts, chapter two, and you could preach an awesome message about prayer, about church attendance, about baptism itself, about speaking in tongues, about the Holy Spirit. There's a lot here in what we see follow from this powerful baptism moment. But I want to focus on Acts 2 45, which says this this is in the list of things that the church immediately starts doing after thousands of people get baptized. It says and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. So I wanna focus on that particular verse today because, if you can believe it or not, we are actually one Sunday away from the Advent season. Next Sunday is our last Sunday, not in Advent, advent being the traditional period of the church calendar leading up to Christmas. So we are basically in the Christmas season.
Speaker 1:So I want to preface our hearts and I wanna give us a little charge as a church family before we step into the Christmas season. Maybe you've noticed some people have already started. Those people, I would say, are going to hell because they're skipping Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving is like the best holiday, and so if I go to your house for Thanksgiving dinner and the tree's up, I don't know what we're doing. Like you might as well just serve peppermint tea and ham and like because just make Christmas dinner, I don't know what to tell you If I see a tree. If I see a tree and there's turkey on the table. You're confused, you're lost. I don't know what to tell you. You can go back downstairs. We'll baptize you again if you got your tree up. We got a lot of stuff to figure out there, but we are almost not yet almost in the Christmas season and my hope is that this is not yet another pre-Christmas generosity message.
Speaker 1:What I would like to do is hopefully bring two maybe different or unique observations just very quickly from the Scripture about the generosity of the church and hopefully frame how we enter the Christmas season through the lens of generosity in a little bit of a different way. So I'm just going to make a couple of quick observations. But I'm sure you've heard it before, but it's worth saying every time God solved the biggest problem ever by giving. God did not solve the biggest problem ever by praying. God did not solve the biggest problem ever by praying. God did not solve the biggest problem ever by miracles, by healing people. God solved the biggest problem in the history of humanity by giving.
Speaker 1:And so if we look at the life of the church immediately after the day of Pentecost, and if you're here, whether you like it or not, you're in a charismatic Pentecostal church, and so if you value the day of Pentecost and if you're here, whether you like it or not, you're in a charismatic Pentecostal church, and so if you value the day of Pentecost and you want the fruit of Pentecost, well, generosity is right there in the middle, acts 2.45. It's not the only thing, okay, to which maybe some of the prosperity preachers would get upset with me. It's not the only thing that happens when the Holy Spirit comes. Prosperity preachers would get upset with me. It's not the only thing that happens when the Holy Spirit comes, but it is a thing that happens when the Holy Spirit comes.
Speaker 1:And I feel like in church life, if you're talking to a brother or sister in the community and you hear that they've stopped praying, or you hear that they've stopped valuing the Word of God, or you hear that they've just decided, I don't feel like my family needs church attendance anymore. I don't feel like that's important. I don't feel like small group is necessary for me as a Christian. I feel like you would be right to, in love, move into a space of correction Like, well, hey, come on. You know that the Bible is the word of God and every scripture is breathed out by God. It's profitable for doctrine and reproof. Or if someone says that they're not coming to church, you would feel empowered to move into this space of, well, hey, come on. You know that it's so hard to go through life alone and when your family's in church things seem to be doing better, you would feel empowered to move into that space.
Speaker 1:But if you were talking to a brother or sister who said, yeah, I'm not really feeling inspired to give, or I've decided that, you know, I'm not really going to tithe anymore, I feel like the common response would be like, well, you know, I don't really like when the pastor talks about money either and like, well, yeah, you know, it's a private issue, so who am I to say really what you should be doing with your money? I don't know. You do your thing. That seems right. And we feel this block when it comes to generosity, that you know that prayer comes when the Holy Spirit's moving in someone's life and if that's not happening, then there's something that can be spoken into, prayed into, talked about, shared about. If someone is not coming to church, you know that there's something going on there like, oh, that's not the healthiest God, that's not the healthiest life that God wants for you. You would feel empowered to encourage someone, that that is the same in giving and tithing and generosity. That it is the thing, one of the things that happens when the Holy Spirit falls on someone's life, just like prayer, just like church attendance, just like a hunger for the word, just like a desire for holiness. Generosity is what comes when the Holy Spirit touches someone, and I don't know if we look at it like that and so I just want to make man. My mouth is crazy going on right now. It hurts. So I just want to look at a couple things. The first thing I want to look at that we see in another verse that I'll get to in a second, and you can write this down if you'd like Generosity is a proof of salvation. Here's my classic line. Don't hear what I'm not saying Generosity is not the proof of salvation. Generosity, though, is a proof of salvation.
Speaker 1:In 2 Corinthians, chapter 9 is one of Paul's most famous generosity teachings. He's writing to the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth is a very well-off church and there's a famine happening in Israel and the Jewish Christian church is experiencing a famine, and so Paul is going to the well-off Gentile churches and is taking up fundraising. So one of the reasons the epistle 2 Corinthians exists not the only reason, but one of them is for Paul to fundraise. So you know, for everyone that says I don't like when my pastor talks about money, you wouldn't have 2 Corinthians if Paul didn't feel like pastors should be talking about money. And he says this in 2 Corinthians 9.13. He's talking about what's going to happen when the Corinthian church gives a donation to the church in Israel. By their approval of this service, they they being the Jewish Christians will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for others. Isn't that interesting that when Paul talks about when you sow into this church that is experiencing famine, it is an act of confession.
Speaker 1:Now we live in Western post-enlightenment. I think, therefore, I am world, where the only thing that I need to do to prove a identity of mine is say it. I think, therefore, I am. If I think that Jesus is the son of God, then I am a Christian. I don't need to do anything else. Can I tell you church? No one in the history of the church until 200 years ago believed that this idea of what goes on in here is the source of my self-definition is a very new and very secular concept that if what's going on in my heart and what's going on in my head, those two things combine, make my identity. And what's going on in my head, those two things combined make my identity. There are a lot of problems today with following that line of thinking that if I think this is true about me, I don't actually have to do anything else. That is just true about me and ought to be affirmed.
Speaker 1:I've seen it so many times in church life that people say I am a Christian and we follow up and say, hey, when was the last time you prayed, not as a you need to do this to get saved, but just checking in with people. Oh, what are you reading in scripture? Hey, I haven't seen you at church in a long time. Hey, how can I pray for you? And the walls go up, they get super defensive, they go hang on a second. I thought I didn't need to read the Bible to be saved. Whoa, that's not what we're talking about at all. Relax, I'm just asking if the way you're living is congruent with your mental identity.
Speaker 1:And so what Paul is talking about is that giving is a way to confess that you believe in Jesus. I'm not going to read the verse for time, but you know the famous verse in James, chapter 1 or chapter 2, when he talks about you have faith and that'll work for you. I'll show you my faith by my good works. And so, again, it's not necessarily that good works save us. I'm not having that conversation today, but we do live in this world where selfhood is defined from within and, like I said, the early church. No one in the early church believed that.
Speaker 1:Clement of Rome says let the wise one demonstrate his wisdom not with words, but with good works. Do not let the humble person testify himself, but allow him to be testified about by others. Do you want your pastors and do you want your church family to think of you as a generous person? Well, I can tell you that we know who the generous in the church are, so you don't need to tell us If you're giving and if you're giving above and beyond, we as a family, as a church family and as a staff, go man, this family's awesome. They're so generous, they're doing what they need to do.
Speaker 1:We have never had a conversation where they told us hey, you know, I'm really generous. We know, because the humble, their good works are testified about by others. You don't need to tell anybody if you're a nice person, because everyone's gonna spend time with you and go wow, you're a nice person. You don't need to go around saying, hey, it'd be awesome if you said to so-and-so that I'm really handsome. If you're handsome, we're going to say, wow, that guy's really handsome. You know what I'm saying. So it's saying if you're humble, you actually don't need to pronounce your good works and generosity is not the only good work. You don't need to pronounce your good works If you're a prayer warrior like Brother Burt. Brother Burt has not told anyone in the church hey, you know, I'm really good at praying. Everyone in the church just knows that Burt is really good at praying. Because the humble yeah, the humble don't need to tell somebody what they're up to. Everyone will see it and will honor them.
Speaker 1:Instead, what's the point I'm making? That's a good question. I'm not making the point to get everyone to break into a faith versus works fight, but what I am trying to do is perhaps make a different observation from the Scripture that. Have you considered that both the early church and the authors of Scripture considered generosity a form of confession and generosity as a proof of salvation. Let's move on.
Speaker 1:The second point is this, and I'm just going to speed through it for time, but if you read, I would encourage you to read 2 Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9. It is one of Paul's most famous teachings on giving and generosity. Again, taking the collection for the church in Israel that was experiencing a famine. But one of the things he says, as he's going through in 2 Corinthians 8.15, is he's referencing a narrative from Exodus. In 2 Corinthians 8.15, he says Paul's saying, as it is written, and he quotes Exodus whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack, to which he would say awesome, that's a great verse. I remember that from Exodus.
Speaker 1:What's Paul doing? Corinth, the church in Corinth was a very well-off church, and so there was a lot of trade, there was a lot of import-export, there was a lot of entertainment, there was a lot of business. It was a very well-off city in the ancient Near East, and so you might think Paul is just kind of reinforcing his point by throwing in a little scripture, like we do all the time. But what Paul's actually doing is much deeper. The verse he's quoting is from Exodus, chapter 20, and in Exodus, chapter 20, it is actually the middle of the manna narrative, when the people of Israel are wandering through the wilderness and food is falling from the sky. What Paul is doing in reminding a well-off church about the manna narrative is he's trying to put them back to a place where provision was supernatural, and I think there is perhaps no greater message for a well-off American church to remember that provision.
Speaker 1:No matter how much you know about 401k, no matter how much you know about the stock market, no matter how much you know, if I work this many hours, I'll do this. If my interest rate is this, this, and that, at the end of the day, that you are here and that you have enough, is just as supernatural as the manna from heaven. Okay, why is that important when it comes to giving? Because if you didn't earn it, it's not yours to keep. What Paul was quoting is in the verse in Exodus. They received the manna. It fell from the sky. Everyone gathered as much as they could and whoever didn't have they just said oh well, this is mine, or, sorry, this is yours. Opposite, this is yours why? Well, I just. It fell out of the sky and I picked it up over here. So if I have too much and you need some here you go, because it wasn't theirs to keep. It was literally falling out of the sky.
Speaker 1:And we live in a world again where we can actually point hours worked or effort put in to a dollar sign and it doesn't feel like something supernatural is happening. When we get money, it feels like, well, I had a good quarter, so yeah, this is what I expected to earn. Or yeah, I did work 16 hours that day, so yeah, my check should be this. Or yeah, I do know that my interest rate in my retirement is this, so I'm expecting to get this and that. And getting provision from the Lord just is this routine thing that if I push these buttons and I pull these levers and I turn these dials, then I'm gonna get this money. And we have removed the.
Speaker 1:There's a disenchantment around money that I think is so painfully affecting us in the Western church that if you lived 300 years ago, you had to plant seed and pray that it rained. So if you had a harvest, you could only say, well, I did my part, but thank you, lord. Now we live where. Don't get me started on irrigation. We have irrigation, so you sow a seed and you don't need to pray because, well, if it rains, that's awesome, but if it doesn't rain, I have water set aside and so the harvest is no longer supernatural. There is no longer this 50-50. I do my part, god does his. If it works, it's because God came through there's. I did what I was supposed to do and now I have enough money, and if you have that attitude, then it's yours to keep, because it was yours that you earned.
Speaker 1:But can I tell you that you live in the United States of America in 2024 is just as much an act of supernatural providence, because you could have been born in Czechoslovakia in 1633 and you'd have to be sowing seeds and praying for rain. So that you're here. Now that you are well off, you have much less to do with it than you think you do. That you have food on the table is much less to your credit than you think it is. There are Christians alive today who are struggling to think of what is going to happen for that next meal. So that you are here and that you have more than enough is as much an act of providence as food falling out of the sky, and if it is an act of divine grace that you have what you have, then you can steward what you have with much more of an open hand, because you didn't earn it. You didn't pick to be born here. You didn't pick to have the intelligence that you have. You didn't pick to be born in this year, in this country, in this town. You just were Thank God for that. And now you have what you have. How are you going to steward it?
Speaker 1:And so there is a, there's a lack or there's a loss of wonder, and one of the things it says in Acts 2 is all of the church was in awe because of the wonders that the Holy Spirit was performing through the apostles. And, like Pastor Chuck talks about a couple months ago, that place of awestruck wonder in what the Lord is doing leads you to this place of generosity. And so I think that it's important to recognize the supernatural. That we still have a supernatural God on our side and that we still have food on the table is actually an act of divine grace. So those are just two quick observations. That number one maybe you have never considered that generosity is considered by many in the church to be a proof of salvation, and that maybe you've never considered that what you have in your account and what you have on your table now is actually just as much of a miracle as it was if bread was literally falling out of the sky. Both of those two things are true and, honestly, as I was reading the scripture, I had never considered either one of those things, because in my walk it's, I'm sure, similar with many of you even in the tithe, it's so automatic, it's the button of like.
Speaker 1:I work, I get my check, I tithe, bada bing, bada, boom. That's just one of my processes. I put some in savings, I put some for groceries. It's so dry, right. It's so cold, it's so not divine.
Speaker 1:And if you look at how the church thought about provision 200 years ago, 300 years ago, it was this deeply interwoven relationship with you, your hands, your labor, the earth, the Lord, the weather, the seasons. It was this wonderful thing of all of us coming together and feeling like I was part of something bigger than myself, as I worked my hands, as I worked the land, as I did what I needed to do, as I depended on the Lord to do the things that I cannot. And so I just wanna encourage us, as we think about everything going into the Christmas season, that Jesus solved our problem by giving, and so, when we think about provision, when we think about generosity, there is a level of supernatural warmth that I think we can reenter when it comes to how we look at provision, how we look at finances, how we look at money, because it is the same thing with the things that you're good at and the way God made you, with your two hands, partnering with the creator of the universe, manipulating the things around you to make a better world, and that work is a supernatural act of redemption. And so I wanna close with this, first of all, to invite the Holy Spirit back into your relationship with finances. The Holy Spirit back into your relationship with finances, because, if you reflect on the character of God as a giver, not only does it encourage you to become more generous, it actually takes all the pressure off of you, because if it is 50-50, you and the Lord, well, you're in a partnership, and the partnership you're in is with a person who doesn't fail. You're in a partnership, and the partnership you're in is with a person who doesn't fail, so you can show up late one too many times and things don't go so well for you. You can miss the quota, you can miss the deadline. And if all of the pressure to earn is on you, number one, you're going to hold on to it like this, and number two, you're going to freak out if something goes wrong. And so in this season of man, I gotta get stuff for my kids.
Speaker 1:Man Giving Tuesday's coming up. Man, there's the people on the corner with the Salvation Army buckets. I don't know if I can do that. Well, yeah, you can, because the way you're looking at it is, it's not supernatural, it's not a co-laboring with God. So the first thing I wanna encourage us to do as a church family in the Christmas season is to reconsider the Lord as a giver. God is a giver. The remembrance of the Christmas season is to remember that God gave. And if the goal of Christian discipleship is to become like Jesus and Jesus' introduction to human history was by giving a gift how much more can we consider what we are capable of doing in this Christmas season? So I have a couple of challenges and the worship team can come up and close. I have a couple of challenges for you to consider as a church family as we move into the Christmas season. Is that okay?
Speaker 1:Okay, the first giving challenge that I would extend to you during Advent is to tithe. If you've never tithed, if you've never believed in it, if you've never heard about it, first of all come down to Freeway 201. Today. I'll be talking about tithing. If you've never tithed, I would just encourage you, just in December, to tithe. What is the tithe? The tithe is 10% of what you make, given to directly to your local church.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of other forms of generosity and a lot of other forms of giving, but the tithe is one of the easiest and most simple ways, because you don't have to figure out well, which charity should I give to? Which cause is best? How much do I need? Is it monthly or is it one time? If you tithe in December and you have never tithed, I promise you that what God's word says is true that he will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing on you that you cannot contain. So that's my challenge to those of you who have not yet tithed ever, or just don't tithe regularly In December, just the month of December.
Speaker 1:Tithe and see what happens Now? If you do tithe, I would encourage you and we're going to do this. If you do tithe, I would encourage you and we're going to do this. We've done this before. In the month of December, tithe, 12%, and the 2% can be whatever you want. But if you don't, if you know anything about budgeting, if you know anything about saving for retirement, saving to buy a home, if it's not written down on a piece of paper, that money is going to disappear. And so you might leave here going yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, we'll be generous in December, 100%, 100%. And then you're going to do your December budget and you're going to go. Well, you know somewhere, $25 is going to pop up and I'll give it to somebody. That's not going to happen, because that's never happened to me. When I've done that, I go, oh yeah, somewhere. I'm going to find $30 along the way.
Speaker 1:If you tithe, if you're faithful in giving, I'm not saying give $10,000. I'm saying in the month of December, what if you gave the 10% and then you set aside another 2% and you gave it to the church, you gave it to someone on the street, you bought someone a gift that you weren't planning on giving a gift to you, tipped extra 20 bucks here, 20 bucks there, 20 bucks there. You tipped extra and wrote a God bless you on the check two percent. The average salary in Oak Park is $60,000. Two percent is a hundred dollars. That's 20 bucks a week. In the month of December, I gave someone $10 Wednesday. I give someone $10 Friday. That's the average. Some of you make more, some of you make less, but $100 in the season of giving, that's not a crazy ask. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:If you're already telling, if you're already giving faithfully, turn it up to 2%, turn it faithfully. Turn it up to 2%, turn it up 2%, turn it up to 2%. Well, yeah, turn up 2% and see what happens. You don't have to do it the rest of your life. January comes, you can go right back down to 10. But see what happens If you have that on the budget, if you have generosity how many of you have ever I don't know how many times I have put generosity as a line item on the budget what would happen if you just had that money to give, if you didn't have to do the mental gymnastics oh, could we tip this much?
Speaker 1:Or, oh, could we do. I have, oh, I don't have any cash on me, like what if you just had it planned and saw what happened? And the last I would say is this we have Giving Tuesday coming up in December and Pastor Chuck is going to talk about it leading up to it, but we have Giving Tuesday coming up. It is nationwide the largest day of non-profit fundraising in America. I think last year on Giving Tuesday nationwide we raised like 22 billion dollars. We're given to various nonprofit causes and so if you're looking for a place or a reason or an opportunity to go above and beyond, we actually have that built into the calendar in Giving Tuesday. That doesn't have to go to the church, that doesn't even necessarily have to go to a Christian charity at all.
Speaker 1:The principle is that God's people are generous. The principle is that God's people give out of the abundance of their heart. So we're not saying everything has to come right here. Every extra little penny has to come right here, goes into our pockets, goes into the church, keeping the lights on. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying God's people are generous.
Speaker 1:And so, as you're considering what to do, those are three kind of low-level, mid-level, high-level, just challenges you can take on yourself as you go into the month of December, when you reflect on Jesus as a giver, start tithing, set aside an extra 2% or an extra $100, and consider what to give on Giving Tuesday.
Speaker 1:And I promise you, if you take the step to be generous and pair that with the reflective practice of thinking about God as a giver, your Advent season, your Christmas season, is going to be radically different from any Christmas season you've ever had before. You're going to experience the peace of God in your finances. You're going to experience the provision of God in your life. You're going to experience a joy about giving to others. You're going to experience a peace as you do your budget with your spouse. You're going to enter into 2025 with hope for your future in the finances. You're going to enter into 2025 knowing that God is partnering with you. What a powerful way to start a new year by knowing that the Lord is partnering with you in your finances. Can you receive that word today? Church.